A variety of ultrasound imaging systems are well known in the art and are valuable for scanning and examining details below a surface. They are particularly useful in medical diagnosis because they allow real time imaging inside a patient's body without surgery and without penetration.
A modern ultrasound imaging system will usually support a variety of different transducing heads. The transducing heads are responsible for actually transmitting the ultrasound signals and receiving the echoes from within the body being examined. Different heads are better suited to different applications. The depth of penetration, resolution and contrast, for example, can vary greatly from one head type to another.
In a conventional ultrasound imaging system the head type is changed by unplugging one transducer head from a transducer port and then plugging a different head into the same port. In addition to being inconvenient, this arrangement causes interruptions in examinations which require that several different transducing heads be used.